Python Tutorial: double single quotes?

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

# Not sure what possessed a guy writing[3] an otherwise good
# tutorial on Python to use doubled single quotes, but
# anyway the annoyance factor finally pushed me over the
# edge[1], and I wrote a script to change them all.  I
# probably could have written it in Python except that I'm
# only just now reading the Python tutorial, so I don't know
# enough Python to do this yet.  So I wrote it in another
# language[2].  But anyway, in case anyone else is suffering
# the same malady, here it is...  run it once from the
# directory where the tutorial files are, and it fixes the
# ``stupid quotes'' to "regular quotes" (using, of course,
# the proper HTML entity).[4]
# 
# Fix stupid ``quotes'' in HTML documents.  I got tired of
# seeing the double single quotation marks, (doubled single
# quotes -- WHY?) in the Python documentation, so I decided
# to FIX it.  Here we go...

sub mungfile {   
    $filecontents =~ s/\`\`/"/g;
    $filecontents =~ s/\'\'/"/g;  }

sub slurpfile {
    $filecontents = "";
    open INFILE, $filename;
    while (<INFILE>)
    {   $filecontents .= $_;   } }

sub writefile {
    open OUTFILE, ">" . $filename; 
                  # NOTE:  Overwrites the original file!
    print OUTFILE $filecontents; }

opendir THISDIR, "."; @filelist = readdir THISDIR; closedir THISDIR;
@filelist = grep /.html?$/, @filelist;
if ($debug) { print "Filtered filelist:  @filelist"; } 

foreach $filename ( @filelist ) {
    slurpfile();
    mungfile();
    writefile(); }

# Anyway, now I can get back to reading the tutorial
# without going crazy...  I feel better about that now.

# [1] Yes, maybe I *am* neurotic, but it was driving me nuts.
#
# [2] Specifically, Perl.  I could have written it in elisp,
#     but I didn't.  I also could have written it in QBasic,
#     but that would have taken me an hour instead of a minute.
#
# [3] Or perhaps it was the guy translating it into HTML.
#    
# [4] If you run it again from the directory where the library
#     reference is, it'll fix the quotes in that, too :-)